Body recovered following drowning in Lake Osoyoos

OROVILLE  The body of a Surrey, B.C., man was recovered Sunday night from Lake Osoyoos, near Veranda Beach.

John M. Mele, 43, drowned Friday afternoon after he allegedly did a back flip off a boat into the water.

“Mele began to surface and then went back under the water and disappeared,” Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers said.

The call came in around 1:30 p.m. Friday. Divers from the Sheriff’s Office, private divers and those from Canada spent the weekend combing the lake, and with the help of sonar equipment, were able to locate Mele’s body.

Mele’s is the fourth drowning this year in Okanogan County.

Darrel L. Williams, 57, of Oroville, is presumed drowned after he fell overboard near Chopaka Lodge in Palmer Lake on July 11. Rogers said deputies searched the lake, again, last week, but have yet to recover his body.

Kenneth J. Leslie, 46, of Sedro Woolley, is missing and presumed drowned after his boat was swamped and sank in the Columbia River southeast of Nespelem, in June.

Charity R. Rumbolz, 24, of Okanogan, drowned in Conconully Lake in May after the ATV in which she was a passenger plummeted into the lake.